THE VETERANS AFFAIRS SCANDAL – TWO YEARS LATER

PUBLISHED: MAY, 2016

By: Adam Andrzejewski – Founder and CEO of OpenTheBooks.com

Thomas W. Smith – Chairman of OpenTheBooks.com

“Open the Books is doing the work I envisioned when the Coburn-Obama bill became law. Their innovative app and other tools are putting sunlight through a magnifying glass.” March 11, 2014

Dr. Tom Coburn, Honorary Chairman of OpenTheBooks.com

OUR REPORT MADE POSSIBLE BY:

The “Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006” Sponsors: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) & Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)

(Public Law 109-282, 109th Congress)

“Is the spending in the public interest or the special interest?” – U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn

“I know that restoring transparency is not only the surest way to achieve results,

but also to earn back the trust in government…” – U.S. Sen. Barack Obama

Two years ago Americans were horrified to learn that many of

our nation’s veterans were dying on waiting lists while awaiting

medical care at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facilities. The

numbers were staggering. One report found that of the 800,000

records stalled in the VA system, 307,000 belonged to veterans

who had already died. While not all of those veterans died because

of VA mistakes, another report by then-U.S. Senator Tom Coburn,

M.D. (who is the Honorary Chairman of Open the Books) found

that more than 1,000 veterans died because of neglect that could

be linked to VA mismanagement.

In the following two years not much has changed. In fact, many

of the problems identified in wake of the VA scandal have not

improved or have gotten worse. For instance, in January of 2016

taxpayers learned the number of veterans on waiting lists had

actually increased by 50 percent in the previous year.

Even worse, any hope that the culture of the dysfunctional and

incompetent VA had been reformed were dashed recently when

VA Secretary Robert McDonald made an appalling comparison to

waiting in line at Disney parks.

McDonald said, “When you go to Disney, do they measure the

number of hours you wait in line? Or what’s important? What’s

important is, what’s your satisfaction with the experience.”

The difference, of course, is Americans don’t die in large numbers

while waiting in line at Disney. And waiting to get into Disney

is something Americans do for fun. Waiting to see a doctor is

something Americans do to save their lives.

Our new snapshot report looks at VA salaries and spending from

2012-2015 in the context of ongoing problems at the VA. Consider

these key findings and facts:

•Today,nearlyhalf amillionveterans stillwait to seeaVAdoctor. AccordingtoUSA Today,morethan480,000veteranswerewaiting morethan30daysforanappointment.

•WhilelongwaittimespersistedtheVAadded39,454newpositions totheirpayrollbetween2012-2015.Fewerthantenpercentofthese newpositions(3,591)were‘MedicalOfficers,’i.e.doctors.

•Duringthistimeperiod$99.1billioninsalariesandbonusesflowed to354,960VAemployees.

•Evenafter“reforms”wereinstituted,wefoundthatoneofeverytwo bonuses continued to flow to the same people who collected bonusesduringthescandal.

•OftheVA’s354,960employees,19percent(67,609)earnedmore than$100,000peryear.

•Since2012,totalannualsalariesincreasedby168percentoverthe ConsumerPriceIndex(CPI).

•Since2012,totalannualsalariesspendingincreasedby18.7percent.

•Since 2012, total employee counts have increased by 39,449 or12.5percent.

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OPENTHEBOOKS.COM SNAPSHOT OVERSIGHT REPORT

THE VETERANS AFFAIRS SCANDAL – TWO YEARS LATER

NAME SALARY POSITION TITLECacciarelli Thomas V $400,000 Medical OfficerKim Hubert T $400,000 Medical OfficerSzerlip Nicholas John $400,000 Medical OfficerDas Mithilesh K $397,161 Medical OfficerLewis Neil P $397,161 Medical OfficerHolman William L $395,729 Medical OfficerSmith Joseph K $395,000 Medical OfficerHolloway Kathryn L $394,219 Medical OfficerHarpole David H Jr $394,154 Medical OfficerGuthrie Barton L $394,150 Medical OfficerHadley Mark N $394,150 Medical OfficerSonel Ali F $394,024 Medical OfficerAgarwal Rakesh $393,699 Medical OfficerHardaker William T Jr $393,699 Medical OfficerMaqbool Feroz $393,394 Medical OfficerItani Kamal $392,154 Medical OfficerRobinson Harry J $391,452 Medical OfficerTurner Dennis A $391,120 Medical OfficerFann James I $391,112 Medical OfficerKhan Muhammad R R $390,619 Medical OfficerSkirboll Stephen L $390,497 Medical OfficerHa Jonathan David $390,302 Medical OfficerSherrier Robert H $389,388 Medical OfficerFosmire Helen $389,355 Medical OfficerTrachiotis Gregory D $389,024 Medical Officer

In the latest fiscal year available at OpenTheBooks.com, the Top 25 SALARIES are displayed below. These salaries represent only “pensionable” salary—the annual amount that figures into the eventual calculation of the employees retirement annuity. These figures are not total cost which includes perks & pension benefits.

Top Salaries 2015Department of Veteran Affairs

SOURCE: OPENTHEBOOKS.COM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERAN AFFAIRS SALARY RANGES FOR ALL DEPARTMENTS

<$50K35.24%124,886

Percentage

Count

CO

UN

TS

$50-$70K27.31%96,800

$75-$100K18.38%65,129

$100K-$125K8.57%30,384

$125K+10.50%37,225

140,000120,000100,000

80,00060,00040,00020,000

0

Salary Ranges: Department of Veteran Affairs

openthebooks.com | 200 S. FRONTAGE RD, SUITE 101, BURR RIDGE IL 60527 | an american transparency project

OPENTHEBOOKS.COM SNAPSHOT OVERSIGHT REPORT

SOURCE: OPENTHEBOOKS.COM, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERAN AFFAIRS SALARIES & EMPLOYEE COUNT

Actual Consumer Price Index (CPI) = (Inflation)

FACT: Since 2012, Total Annual Salaries have +$4,295,198,454 or +18.70%

FACT: Since 2012, Total Annual Salaries have increased by +168.39% over Consumer Price Index (CPI) = (inflation)

ACTUAL CONSUMER PRICE INDEX (CPI)YEAR COUNT SALARY %CHANGE AVG SALARY SALARY %CHANGE2015 354,959 $27,259,096,361 7.14% $76,795 $24,415,736,387 1.70%2014 338,308 $25,312,132,724 5.43% $74,820 $24,007,607,067 3.00%2013 326,284 $23,937,842,618 4.07% $73,365 $23,308,356,376 1.50%2012 315,510 $22,963,897,907 -- $72,783 $22,963,897,907 – 16.64% 6.20%

Total Annual Salaries

Annual Salaries & Employee Counts Department of Veteran Affairs

$28,000,000,000$27,000,000,000$26,000,000,000$25,000,000,000$24,000,000,000$23,000,000,000$22,000,000,000$21,000,000,000$20,000,000,000

2012 2013 2014 2015

FACT: Since 2012, Total Employee Counts have increased by +39,449 or +12.50%

Total Employee Counts360,000350,000340,000330,000320,000310,000300,000290,000

2012 2013 2014 2015

TOTA

L SA

LAR

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YEAR

EMPL

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E C

OU

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YEAR

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BACKGROUND ON OUR REPORT RESEARCH:Our motto is ‘Every Dime. Online. In Real Time.’ Remember, it’s

your money. Therefore, weattempt to provide non-partisan facts

using the resources of the 2.6 billion captured public expenditures

at OpenTheBooks.com. We leave systemic solutions to the public

policy debate.

Across the policy continuum, everyone can stand against waste,

fraud, duplication of services, and taxpayer abuse. Our goal is that

the federally disclosed expenditures showcased in this oversight

snapshot report aid in the education of all stakeholders and thereby

fully inform the debate on all sides.

American Transparency (OpenTheBooks.com) Chairman of the

Board Thomas W. Smith recognizes the hard work of our team...

Adam Andrzejewski, founder and Chief Executive Officer,

provided data interpretation, gave context, and authored this

report. John Hart, Senior Advisor provided drafting, editing

and contextual analysis. Craig Mijares, Director of Information

Technology, assembled and organized the datasets. Matthew Tyrmand, Deputy Director, contributed to the editing and

helped disseminate this report to national media. Special thank

you to our graphic designer, Paul Romanowski.

ABOUT OPENTHEBOOKS.COMOur mission is to post online “every dime” taxed and spent by

federal, state and local units of government across America.

Currently, we display 2.6 billion lines of government spending

and are the largest publically accessible database of government

spending in the world. We use the latest in technology to display

the spending, including the first-to-market mobile app – Open

The Books - which hyper-localized all disclosed United States

Government checkbook spending since 2000. As showcased in

The Wall Street Journal, our app is free for Apple and Android.

Since 2013, we publish OpenTheBooks Oversight Reports:

The Militarization of America; The Department of Self-Promotion - $4.4 Billion in Federal Agency PR Spending; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; Export – Import Bank; Fortune 100 Companies; Small Business Administration Lending to the Wealthy Lifestyle; Veterans Administration Cash Compensation: Salaries and Bonuses; and FarmSubsidiesinUrbanAreas. Learn more at OpenTheBooks.com.

DISCLAIMER:This report quantifies public spending at ‘Veterans Affairs’ mostly

from FY2012-FY2015, unless specifically delineated in the text. The

data is the result of Freedom of Information requests under the

2006 ‘Google Your Government Act’ compiled at OpenTheBooks.com. To the extent that the government makes mistakes in the

reporting of inaccurate or incomplete data, our report will reflect

these same mistakes.

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